Liz is a novelist but this book is not a novel. It is about how we can live our life to the fullest and how to be creative living. The book is a collection of many short stories, all contributed to explaining how to live a creative life. Liz summarizes into 7 ingredients for creative living, i.e. Courage, Enchantment, Permission, Persistence, Trust, and Divinity.
Courage. Being creative means that you have to step out of your safe zone. At this time, fear always shows up because fear hates uncertainty and being innovative provides uncertainty outcome. Liz's advice is not to fight fear and try to relax. Her tip is a short self-talk with fear somehow like that "hey fear, I know you there and I know you gonna tell me not to do this, but you should understand that I am the one who in control here. I will let you get on the journey with me but you will not have the voice, the right to vote and especially the right to drive". I love this tip and start using it anytime I feel nervous before doing something.
Enchantment. To start doing something creative you need to have an innovative idea. Liz tells us that ideas are alway exist in the universe. They float away trying to find someone who realizes them, interested in them and promises to work with them. All we need to do is let our mind relax and open to see the sigh when ideas come to us, grab them and commit to work until our work is done.
Permission. Everyone want to live a life to the fullest but not everyone dares to live this way. We often have pity though like "I'm just no one, I have no talent, how dare I'm to be creative, It's a stupid idea and I will earn nothing but time wasted". No, it's not right. Liz says that what keeps us from creative living is our self-absorption (doubt, disgust, judgement). We are allowed to be here in the earth, this means we are allowed to have a voice and a vision of our own. Quote from the book: "I do what I do because I love doing this".
Persistence. Believing is not enough, you also have to work your tail off. If you devote yourself to anything diligently for ten years, that will make you an expert. Even doing creative thing is not alway interesting. Sometimes, you might feel exhausted, so Liz's advice is don't treat your creativity like a tired old unhappy marriage and start regarding it as an affair. Even if you have only 15 minutes a day for your creativity let make it like a sexy hot love in a stairwell. Success depends on 3 factors: talent, luck, and discipline, but you can control only the discipline. It is your only card and you need to play it hard. Focus on your work and don't care about what other thinking because people merely don't give a damn about what you're doing.
Trust. Follow your passion is a good idea, but if you are not clear about your passion then keep working and trust that creativity is alway trying to find you. What ever else happens, stay busy. "Be not solitary, be not idle" - Robert Burton.
Divinity. I'm not clear about the last part. Maybe because Liz is a religious woman so the spiritual, sacred, workship things are really important to her. I guest she wants to tell us that living a creative life is like following a religious, following god step.
The "Big Magic" book should be read more than once to get all the idea that the author want to say. Liz do not means to write a book to teach people. She write it because she love to write, and she write it for herself. But, it turn out that what she wrote in the book is really helpful for others, including me. Now, I believe in what I'm doing and I will keep doing what really matter to me not because of anyone but me.
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